Technological Choice and Union‐Management Cooperation

Abstract

Growth in the number and complexity of “new technology” agreements has led some observers to suggest that companies and unions are entering a new era of bargaining. Key features of the emerging model appear to be formal cooperation around the content and the process, as well as the impacts, of technological change. This paper evaluates these expectations against case study data on technological change in a major unionized firm. Even with a formal commitment to a new approach, intervening factors—intra‐organizational power struggles, resource competition, and technical uncertainties—appear to severely limit union involvement and represent major obstacles to a new era of bargaining over technology.